NHL: Flyers' fall continues with loss to Devils

According to the official Ilya Bryzgalov Doomsday Clock, there are potentially 60 minutes left in the Flyers’ season, primarily because they’ve hardly mustered any 60-minute efforts this season.

Their latest lack of work night came Wednesday at Prudential Center, a thoroughly disheartening 5-2 defeat at the hands of the Devils. Forget 60 minutes, the Flyers didn’t put together six minutes of productive hockey on this night.

That promptly produced their seventh straight defeat at the hands of the Devils, their sixth consecutive loss in lovely downtown Newark. That would include the 2012 playoffs, of course ... which shouldn’t be included in any Flyers fan club’s plans for this spring.

“To be honest, I have no idea what to say to you guys,” Bryzgalov, the Flyers’ timekeeping goaltender, said. “I’m just tired of losing, you know? Tired of losing. I have no emotion and nothing to say. Another disappointment for us.

“We do this all year long, and continue doing same things. Neutral zone (turnovers), (line) changes at wrong times. I don’t know, it’s not my area to discuss these things. It’s just bad, you know? Just bad.”

Having worked through 26 of the 28 mostly disappointing efforts of this short and anything but sweet season, Bryzgalov was his usual riddled self. He didn’t make many big saves. Nor did he have much support from a defense that has gone from thin to terrible in recent weeks, and by forwards too busy trying to figure out how to score an even-strength goal to bother correcting their many mid-ice errors.

As has been the case for too much of the past 25 years or so in North Jersey, the Flyers had too many turnovers in the neutral zone to count. And this in the first game since Bryzgalov’s notorious warning Tuesday that if the Devils swept the Flyers in their home-and-home series this week, the Flyers’ season “is done.”

Once again, to clarify: “You’re done,” Bryzgalov said. “That’s it.”

Not that there’s anything wrong about that.

“This one hurts,” Scott Hartnell said. “It stings. You can use any adjective you want. Tomorrow’s a new day. We have to come to the rink with a working attitude and we’ll get through this.”

But if the countdown clock’s alarm goes off loudly, there is much speculation that someone will pay early for this Flyers season of rapid demise. The usual suspects in such situations in this league, as Peter Laviolette is well aware of, is usually fronted by the head coach.

“Lavy’s emotional,” Hartnell said. “He’s intense, he thinks the game really well, his bench awareness is great ... it’s definitely not his fault. A lot of guys have a lot of respect for him.”

Perhaps so, but the way the Flyers play against the Devils would indicate that Laviolette’s teaching isn’t getting through. Then again, history shows that’s not unusual.

“It seems like the Devils have just stymied us the last couple of years,” Hartnell said. “It’s frustrating. We can’t figure it out.”

For the Flyers (12-15-1, 25 points), then, the countdown will continue Friday night, when they host the Devils (13-9-5, 31 points) in a game that may indeed mean their season, and the direction of their franchise. For his part, general manager Paul Holmgren declined comment after this soulless loss that dropped the Flyers to 11th in the conference, and they have played more games than any other East team.

Oh, and they have more losses than every other team in the league.

Tick ... Tick ... Tick...Starting off matters on the wrong foot as usual, Andrej Meszaros threw a clearing pass right into the slot in front of his goalie. Bryzgalov somehow made a save on an unavoidable Devils scoring chance, but couldn’t stop Patrik Elias from planting the rebound at 2:02 for a 1-0 lead.

The Flyers got it back the only way they’ve been able to of late. They scored a power play goal at the 9:45 mark, Wayne Simmonds rifling a nice cross-slot pass to Jake Voracek, who wristed it in for 1-1. But less than a minute later, the Devils went riding into the Flyers zone on a fast break. Adam Henrique was given plenty of room to take a shot, and it bounced off Matt Read and went by Bryzgalov for a 2-1 Devils lead.

That paled in comparison to the embarrassment Read experienced at 17:18, thanks to Laviolette’s insistence to put him at the point of the second power play unit.

Read lost the puck there to Stephen Gionta, and he sent Ilya Kovalchuk in on a breakaway. His laser easily beat Bryzgalov for a shorthanded goal and 3-1 Devils lead after one period. The Flyers, who from the start were sloppy and slow all over the ice, never bothered to pretend they could recover. The Devils hammered that point home early in the second period.

Sean Couturier just missed a would-be set-up pass by Simon Gagne right in front of New Jersey goalie Johan Hedberg. But with every action comes a reaction. The Devils broke right back, Alexei Ponikarovsky getting the puck to a flying Andrei Loktionov, who downshifted into a toe drag as Braydon Coburn went sliding out of the way, then fired one past the undefended Bryzgalov at 6:31 for a 4-1 lead.

“I don’t have answers,” the goalie said. “All I can do is come to the next game and try to play better. We all have to play better to win the game. That’s all we can do. I talk for hours and hours. It never helps.”

And so the countdown continues. If Bryzgalov’s prediction is accurate, for whom that clock tolls and when is anybody’s guess.